Chapter - 14
Building Effective Teams
What is team?
A team is a group of individuals, all working together for a common purpose. The individuals comprising a team ideally should have common goals, common objectives and more or less think on the same lines. They should all work together and strive towards the achievement of a common goal. Individuals who are not compatible with each other can never form a team. They should have similar if not the same interests, thought processes, attitude, perception and likings.
The team members must complement each other. All team members should help each other and work in unison. Team members need to learn how to help one another, help other team members, realize their potential, and create an environment that allows everyone to go beyond their limitations. Personal interests must take a back seat and all of them must deliver their level best to achieve the team objective. Team members must not argue among themselves or underestimate the other member.
Organizations have a sales team, administration team, human resources team operation team and so on. All the members of the sales team would work together to achieve the sales target and generate revenues for the organization.
The team size depends on the complexity of the task to be accomplished. Ideally a team should consist of 7-10 members. Too many members also lead to confusions and misunderstandings.
It is not always that we require a team. Teams should be formed when the task is a little complicated. A single brain can sometimes not take all critical decisions alone, thus a team is formed where the team members contribute equally making the task easy. A team can actually create wonders if all the team members work in unison.
What makes a Team?
Having mutual respect, common goal, trust, strong leadership, open communication, and patience can help make for a successful team.
1. Mutual Respect
It helps to know your teammates. Mutual respect and understanding is grounded in getting to know one another. This can begin by learning about your teammate’s past accomplishments and future goals. When conflicts inevitably arise, mutual respect will play a role in collaborative problem-solving.
2. Specialization
The power of a team is the fact that individuals bring their respective skills to the collective. For example, on a marketing team, you will likely have someone who is great at writing (copywriter), another person who is good with organization (project manager), and another person who is data-driven . The varied skills come together to make for a successful team!
3. Defining Purpose
An important step in the formula for what makes a team successful is primarily establishing an objective. When everyone is aware of the goals and processes to achieve them, everyone can put in the work to make it happen.
4. Adaptation
One of the challenges in managing a team or working with a group of individuals is when change arises. Changes and issues are bound to come up in the process of working together. The ability to be adaptable and flexible to make edits along the way is a great characteristic of what makes a good team.
5. No Scapegoats
Teams work together and teams fail together. Not one person should take all the praise nor should one person suffer all the blame. That’s why pointing fingers is ill-advised in a team setting. It will only lead to a lower morale.
6. Admit Mistakes
Mistakes happen. If there’s a setback or something goes wrong, own it and fix it. Rather than giving up or giving in, you can try again and still achieve your desired results.
7. Patience
One of the primary traits that people must retain while working in a team is patience. Everyone comes to the table with different histories, perspectives, and expectations. Remaining patient and open-minded can help to forge strong and reliable bonds.
8. Ability To Delegate
Leaders need to be able to delegate tasks and work to their team. It’s common that leaders think they have to take on all the work, but that’s the whole reason for having a team.
9. A Strong Leader
Good teams need a good leader. A strong leader is a person who is able to actively listen, monitor results, give consistent feedback, and maintain trust and respect with every team member. A good leader doesn’t have to have all the answers, but they do need to be able to plan accordingly and work with others to achieve results.
10. Competitiveness
A little bit of competition can go a long way. A competitive spirit helps to promote advancement and innovation. It keeps people consistently trying to be better at every step of the way.
How teams differ from group?
The words groups and teams are not same although they are used interchangeably. A group is a collection of individuals who coordinate their efforts, while a team is a group of people who share a common purpose. In a work group, group members are independent from one another and have individual accountability. On the other hand, in a team, team members share a mutual accountability and work closely together to solve problems. A group is not necessarily a team. A group can have individuals with varied interests, attitude as well as thought processes. It is not necessary that the group members would have a common objective or a common goal to achieve. One widely used Australian introduction to business communication suggests that teams have three 'key identifier'. They are
➤ Members operate within a charter.
➤ They see themselves as having specified roles.
➤ They see the team as accountable for achieving specified organizational goals.
According to American experts high performance teams are much more effective than working group. Working groups are formed when staff meet together to share information and to coordinate and make decisions. Such groups are very different from what they called a real team. Team is a small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals, and working approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable. The critical differences between teams and working groups are the levels of commitment and the strong sense of mutual support accountability. A real team always has a level of commitment and the strong sense of mutual support accountability. They will always take collective decisions and they will always hold themselves mutually responsible. But in groups we can't find these features.
Qualities of a team
➤ Can have multiple or rotating leaders
➤ Team members share responsibility for the final outcome
➤ Focus is achieving collective goals
➤ Members contribute to collective work products
➤ The team discusses a problem, decides on a solution, and works on the solution collectively
➤ Team members are interdependent
Qualities of a group
➤ Has only one designated leader
➤ Group members do not share responsibility for the final outcome
➤ Focus is achieving individual goals
➤ Members produce individual work products
➤ The group discusses a problem, decides on a solution, and delegates tasks to individual group members
➤ Group members are independent
Elements of team
According to Katzenbach and Smith a team has six elements. High performance teams score highly on all these elements.
➤ Size:- It is important. Generally 5 to 12 members are considered as good to form a team.
➤ Skills:- A good team should have all the necessary skills.
➤ Purpose:- Purpose is truly meaningful. All members should understand the purpose and see it as important.
➤ Goals:- Goals should be clear, realistic, specific, shared and measurable.
➤ Working approach:- They are also important. They should be clear, shared, fair and well understood.
➤ Mutual accountability:- Teams should hold themselves mutually accountability and responsible.
Working groups can be effective and make sensible decisions. But the real team is much more effective. There are other varieties of team/group.
The pseudo-team
A pseudo team is a group of people working in an organization who call themselves or are called by others a team. They are not real team. They have differing accounts of team objectives whose typical tasks require team members to work alone or in separate dyads towards disparate goals. The members act as individuals and are really interested only in the progress of their own department or area. Its members' failure to share ad co-ordinate may make them perform worse than a working group which has fewer pretensions.
The Potential Team
There is a significant, incremental gain in performance with this type of team. The members are working hard to achieve a higher level of performance. However, the members must work on developing a clear purpose, goals, and common approach. The members must also agree on mutual accountability. This form of teamwork is very common in organizations. This is also where the greatest gain in performance comes, from being a potential team to a real team.
Group and Team Process
Turning groups into teams is not easy. It takes time and it depends on an understanding of fundamental group dynamics, issues such as:-
➤ Group development:- Psychologist Bruce Tuckman developed his group development model in 1965 to explain how healthy teams cohere over time. Tuckman’s model identifies the five stages through which groups progress: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. Each of the five stages of team development represents a step on the team-building ladder. As the group members climb the ladder, they morph from a random assembly of strangers into a high-performing team that can work toward a common goal. Here are Tuckman’s five stages of group development explained in detail:
1.The forming stage of group development:
The forming stage is the first stage in Tuckman’s stages of group development and is a similar experience to our first day on a new job or at a new school. In this phase, most group members are overly polite and are still extremely excited about what their future may hold. Since the group dynamics and team roles aren’t yet established, the team leader will often take charge to direct the individual members. During Tuckman’s forming phase, new team members may discuss team goals, ground rules, and individual roles, but since this stage of development prioritizes people over the actual work, it’s unlikely the team will be high-performing at this time.
2.The storming stage of group development:
The storming phase is like when we reach that point with a new roommate where we begin to notice their small idiosyncrasies that get on our nerves. For teams, the conflict often arises due to clashing working styles between team members. Some people may start to even doubt the team’s goals discussed in the earlier stage and will stop performing their necessary jobs altogether. This has a negative and stressful effect on those who keep up the hard work since the pre-established group processes no longer function smoothly. Some project teams think they can skip this stage, but it’s better to acknowledge conflicts now and work them out rather than avoiding them until they explode.
3.The norming stage of group development:
The next of Tuckman’s stages is the norming phase. This is when the team moves past their previous quarrels and begins to recognize and value their teammates’ strengths. During this stage, team members increasingly respect those who are in leadership roles. Now that everyone has begun to bond and familiarize themselves with the team processes, teammates feel comfortable giving each other constructive feedback as they work toward accomplishing new tasks. Since these new tasks often come with a high degree of difficulty, it is not uncommon for groups to regress back into the storming phase. Even if a group slides back into old behavior, members’ new decision-making skills will make conflicts easier to resolve than they were during the initial storming phase.
4.The performing stage of group development:
The performing phase is the happiest of all the stages of development. In this stage, our team performance is at an all-time high. This high-performance level means all team members are self-reliant and confident enough in their own problem-solving skills that they can function without oversight from the leaders. Everyone is working like a well-oiled machine, free of conflict and moving in sync toward the same end goal.
5.The adjourning stage of group development:
The fifth stage of Tuckman’s development sequence is the adjourning phase. This final stage actually wasn’t added to the Tuckman model until 1977, and it is the most melancholy of all the stages of team formation. The adjourning phase assumes that project teams only exist for a set period of time; once the team’s mission is accomplished, the team itself dissolves. You can equate this stage to a breakup since team members often find it difficult to separate from people with whom they’ve formed close bonds. In fact, this phase is also sometimes known as the “mourning phase” because it is common for team members to experience a feeling of loss when the group is disbanded.
Understanding leadership
Leadership is the art or process of influencing people to strive willingly and enthusiastically towards the achievement of group goals. It is the process of directing the behavior of others toward the accomplishment of some common objectives. Leadership is influencing people to get things done to a standard and quality above their norm. A leader is a person who inspires others to work towards a goal. Leadership thus occurs when a person inspires another person or group of persons to produce some results willingly. Leadership is a relationship that creates positive change.
Many texts agree on a few fundamental points on leaders.
➤ Leaders have special qualities which we can identify.
➤ Leaders have an important effect on their organizations.
➤ We need leaders, and only one leader in each situation.
Leadership culture is important to building organizational culture. Leadership culture is how leaders interact with one another and their team members. It’s the way leaders operate, communicate, and make decisions. And it’s about the everyday working environment: their behaviors, interactions, beliefs, and values.
Leaders must understand their role in shaping an organization’s culture, and organizations must make intentional efforts to help develop their leaders. Effective leadership development goes beyond training classes, adding on to your organizational structure, or even determining the right cultural fit when hiring new leaders. The best way to ensure your leadership culture is positively contributing to your organizational culture is to create modern leaders.
Edwin Locke categories the qualities of leader into three groups:-
➤ Cognitive qualities:- It includes being honest, independent and self-confident.
➤ Motivation :- It includes ' egoistic passion for the work' and 'commitment to action'.
➤ Attitudes towards employees:- It includes respecting their ability and rewarding them on merit.
List of Effective Leadership Traits
A common misconception is that individuals are just naturally gifted with leadership skills. The truth is that leadership traits, like other skills, can be acquired with time and practice. Below are seven traits of an effective leader:
1. Effective Communicators :- Leaders are excellent communicators, able to clearly and concisely explain problems and solutions. Leaders know when to talk and when to listen. In addition, leaders are able to communicate on different levels: one-on-one, via phone, email, etc.
2. Accountable and Responsible :- Leaders hold themselves accountable and take responsibility for any mistakes. Leaders support and encourage individuality while abiding by organizational structure, rules, and policies that need to be followed.
3. Long-term Thinkers :- Leaders are visionaries. This is evidenced by the leadership trait of being able to plan for the future through concrete and quantifiable goals. They understand the need for continuous change and are open to trying new approaches to solve problems or improve processes.
4. Self-motivated :- Leaders are self-motivated and are able to keep going and attain goals despite setbacks. In addition, good leaders try their best to exceed, not just meet, expectations.
5. Confident :- Virtually all good leaders share the leadership trait of confidence. They are able to make tough decisions and lead with authority. By being confident, leaders are able to reassure and inspire others, establish open communications, and encourage teamwork.
6. People-oriented :- Leaders are typically people-oriented and team players. They’re able to foster a team culture, involve others in decision-making, and show concern for each team member. By being people-oriented, leaders are able to energize and motivate others. By making each individual feel important and vital to the team’s success, they secure the best efforts from each member of the team. 7. Emotionally Stable :- Leaders exercise good control and regulation over their own behavior and are able to tolerate frustration and stress. Leaders are able to cope with changes in an environment without having an intense emotional reaction.
Leadership and Management
Leadership and management are the terms that are often considered synonymous. It is essential to understand that leadership is an essential part of effective management. As a crucial component of management, remarkable leadership behavior stresses upon building an environment in which each and every employee develops and excels. Leadership is defined as the potential to influence and drive the group efforts towards the accomplishment of goals. This influence may originate from sources, as that provided by acquisition of managerial position in an organization.
A manager must have traits of a leader, i.e., he must possess leadership qualities. Leaders develop and begin strategies that build and sustain competitive advantage. Organizations require robust leadership and robust management for optimal organization efficiency.
Differences between Leadership and Management
Leadership differs from management in a sense that:
➤ While managers lay down the structure and delegates authority and responsibility, leaders provides direction by developing the organizational vision and communicating it to the employees and inspiring them to achieve it.
➤ While management includes focus on planning, organizing, staffing, directing and controlling; leadership is mainly a part of directing function of management. Leaders focus on listening, building relationships, teamwork, inspiring, motivating and persuading the followers.
➤ While a leader gets his authority from his followers, a manager gets his authority by virtue of his position in the organization.
➤ While managers follow the organization’s policies and procedure, the leaders follow their own instinct.
➤ Management is more of science as the managers are exact, planned, standard, logical and more of mind. Leadership, on the other hand, is an art. In an organization, if the managers are required, then leaders are a must/essential.
➤ While management deals with the technical dimension in an organization or the job content; leadership deals with the people aspect in an organization.
➤ While management measures/evaluates people by their name, past records, present performance; leadership sees and evaluates individuals as having potential for things that can’t be measured, i.e., it deals with future and the performance of people if their potential is fully extracted.
➤ If management is reactive, leadership is proactive.
➤ Management is based more on written communication, while leadership is based more on verbal communication.
The organizations which are over managed and under-led do not perform upto the benchmark. Leadership accompanied by management sets a new direction and makes efficient use of resources to achieve it. Both leadership and management are essential for individual as well as organizational success.
Leaders and Managers can be compared on the following basis:
| Basis | Manager | Leader |
|---|---|---|
| Origin | A person becomes a manager by virtue of his position. | A person becomes a leader by his personal qualities. |
| Formal Rights | Manager has got formal rights in an organization because of his status. | Rights are not available to a leader. |
| Followers | The subordinates are the followers of manager. | The group of employees whom the leader leads are his followers. |
| Functions | A manager performs all five functions of management. | Leader influences people to work willingly for a group objectives. |
| Necessity | A manager is very essential to a concern. | A leader is required to create cordial relation between person working in and for organization. |
| Stability | It is more stable. | Leadership is temporary. |
| Mutual Relationship | All managers are leaders. | All leaders are not managers. |
| Accountability | Manager is accountable for self and subordinates behaviour and performance. | Leaders have no well defined accountability. |
| Concern | A manager's concern is organizational goals. | A leader's concern is group goals and member's satisfaction. |
| Follow | People follow manager by virtue of job description. | People follow them on voluntary basis. |
| Role Continuation | A manager can continue in office till he performs his duties satisfactorily in congruence with organizational goals. | A leader can maintain his position only through day to day wishes of followers. |
| Sanctions | Manager has command over allocation and distribution of sanctions. | A leader has command over different sanctions and related task records.These sanctions are essentially of informal nature. |
Recent developments in leadership research
The most important themes which have emerged from research include:
➤ Vision, communication and networking – emphasizing the leader's need to communicate a clear vision for the group or organization.
➤ Cultural and value – emphasizing the leader's role in building and maintaining an appropriate culture for the group to work in and for the leader to be concerned with values and goals.
➤ Leadership as situated action – trying to provide a more sophisticated analysis of the situations that leaders find themselves in than found in earlier contingency theories.
➤ Leadership as skilled behavior – making a more detailed analysis of the skills and the behavior which good leader use.
➤ Cultural differences – recognizing that there may be some common qualities required of leaders in many cultures but that these will be expressed differently.
➤ Power and authority structures – looking at the different forms of power which leaders may use how followers see their power and authority.
The search for group roles
The typical description of roles in small groups borrowed the three – way distinction. They are originally set out by Benne and Sheats. They are:
➤ Group task roles:- Such as initiating ideas, requesting or giving information.
➤ Group maintenance roles:- Such as supporting or encouraging others, or resolving tension.
➤ Individual roles:- Such as blocker or recognition-seeker.
Belbin's team roles
Belbin studied teamwork for many years, and he famously observed that in teams tend to assume differently team roles. He defined a team role as a tendency to behave, contribute and interrelate with others in a particular way. Belbin and his colleagues observed several hundred teams of managers on management games and exercises and found that:-
➤ The behaviors of team members were organized in a limited number of team roles.
➤ These team roles were independent of the members' technical expertise or formal status.
➤ Managers tended consistently to adopt one or two of these team roles.
➤ These preferred team roles were linked to personality characteristics.
➤ The effectiveness of the team depended upon the combination of team roles adopted by the team members.
Team roles represent a tendency to interact with others in a specific way to make the progress of the team easier. Roles are essential for our team for smooth functioning and task completion. It helps to clarify the work among the team members. it improves the productivity of the team members.
Belbin identified eight team roles
1.Plant (creates ideas)
2.Resource Investigator(explores opportunities and contacts)
3.Co-ordinator(clarifies goals, promotes decision making)
4.Sharper(drives the team forward)
5.Team-worker(provide support and encourage co-operation)
6.Monitor Evaluator (discerning judgment)
7.Implementer (turns ideas into action)
8.Completer (attention to detail)
9.Specialist (technical knowledge and skill)
Problem-solving and decision-making
Problem-solving and decision-making are both important skills for leader to have. Problem-solving is a analytical process used to identify the possible solutions to the situation at hand. Decision-making is a part. of problem-solving. It is a choice made by using one's judgment. The art of making sound decisions is a particularly important skill for leader and management.
There have been many studies which show that groups can fail to solve problems or can make effective decisions if they ignore some of the following:-
➤ Determining the type of task.
➤ Problem-solving barriers, biases and traps.
How can we develop more effective teams and working groups
Building a high performance team involves more than just randomly assembling a group of talented individuals. For a team to be truly effective, its members must unite with the same vision and be motivated to bring that vision to life. They must share clear, measurable goals, and be committed to each play their part in the overall success of the group.
Here are six key steps to building and maintaining a strong, cohesive and effective team:
1. Define the purpose :- Clearly define the purpose of the team, including the overall outcome it has been brought together to achieve. What do you want to create, improve or change? What is the purpose of each person’s role in the team? Providing a clear, inspiring vision sets the foundation for successful teamwork, and helps guide the direction of the group when they face challenges and decisions.
2. Assemble the team :- High performance teams are comprised of individuals that passionately embrace the vision, believe their contribution is meaningful and are motivated to give their best effort. All team members should trust, respect and support each other. Select members with complementary skills and abilities, who can bring a diverse range of viewpoints and ideas to the table. Achieving a good balance of personality types will enable the group to work together harmoniously but also challenge each other when necessary.
3. Determine the goals :- Once the team is established and united behind a shared, compelling purpose, the next step is to break the vision down into smaller, manageable goals and tasks. Outline the required tasks in a schedule, with agreed deadlines, milestones and responsibilities. Decide the role that each team member will play. Be sure to also consider other resources required in terms of time, materials, space, support and money.
4. Set expectations :- To ensure that each member understands what is expected of them, define a standard of conduct for the team. Will communication be frequent, open, honest and transparent? Will contributions be encouraged, valued and recognized? Will conflict be handled in a constructive way? Will team decisions and feedback be respected? Setting clear standards from the outset will ensure that each member’s conduct and contributions are appropriate.
5. Monitor and review :- Regularly review the group’s performance through team meetings and one-on-one catch ups to ensure that progress is being made. Good questions to ask are: how are we doing? What have we achieved so far? What have we learned? What isn’t working so well? How can we improve? Monitoring and reviewing progress allows for adjustments and improvements to be incorporated along the way.
6. Celebrate and reward :- Make the time to regularly recognize, reward and celebrate both team and individual performance. This will help to build morale and bolster the motivation of the group to continue their hard work. Find the most appropriate way to celebrate team milestones, such as a personal ‘thank you’ at a team meeting, an email copied to senior managers, or a team lunch. Ensure that recognition is consistent, and that the method we choose inspires and reinforces the team members to continue their positive contribution to the team’s progress.
To develop effective team is simple identifying all the process problems which might be impending the group progress and try to resolve each one in turn.
According to the joiner Associates, a leading team of US management consultants, there are following useful steps to build a effective team. They are :-
➤ Clarity in team goal
➤ Clearly defined roles
➤ Clear communication
➤ Beneficial team behavior
➤ Well defined decision procedures
➤ Balanced participation
➤ Established ground rules
➤ Awareness of the group approach
Self-Managed Teams
self-managed team is a small group of employees who take full responsibility for delivering a service or product through peer collaboration without a manager's guidance. Young generations entering the workforce are more interested in developing expertise than in rising through ranks.
Self-managed teams demonstrate many benefit of having a great manager. They develop more effective decision-making practices. They feel personally responsible for team performance. They inspire employees to do excellent work. They share ideas for improvement.
Drawbacks of self-managed team
➤ Teams often take a long time to set up and execute effectively.
➤ Certain employees may not be the right fit for self-management.
➤ There may be inequality.
➤ There may be excessive meetings.
According to Richard Hackman the success of self-managed team depends on three factors. They are:-
➤ The group task is well managed so that members are motivated by a task which is meaningful and receive clear feedback.
➤ The group is well composed so that members have the necessary range skills.
➤ The group authority and accountability is clearly specified.
According to Ulich and Weber the team must tackle whole tasks where they can set goals, plan what needs to be done, decide how the work should be done, and receive clear feedback on their performance. Texas Instruments Malaysia moved to an organizational design based on self- managing work team in the 1990s and reported major savings, quality improvements, low absenteeism, etc. They also highlight some of the major lessons which can be drawn from this practice. They are:-
➤ Teams practice must be compatible with overall company philosophy and values, and with a revised organizational structure.
➤ Team practice must be supported by senior management.
➤ Team members will need new social ad technical skills to become self-managed.
➤ Effective implementation is a long and careful process. It took TIM twelve years.
Intergroup relationships
Intergroup relations refers to the way in which people who belong to social groups or categories perceive, think about, feel about, and act towards and interact with people in other groups. It is a communication with person who belong to other group.
Intergroup relations involve the feelings, evaluations, beliefs, and behaviors that groups and their members have toward another group and its members. Negative intergroup relations typically involve prejudice (negative feelings and evaluations), stereotypes (beliefs about groups and their members), and discrimination (unfair treatment).
The nature of intergroup relations is determined by psychological processes associated with social categorization, by the personalities and motivations of group members, and by the functional relationship between the groups. These processes apply to a wide range of groups, including work teams, divisions within an organization, companies, and countries.
It very important to understanding intergroup conflicts, that is, conflicts between people that occur in terms of their group identities.
Intergroup conflicts arise from objective differences of interest, coupled with antagonistic or controlling attitudes or behaviors. Incompatibilities, which can prompt conflict, include economic, power or value differences, or differences in needs-satisfaction. Often intergroup conflicts have a mixture of these elements.
Resolving destructive intergroup conflicts is a complex and sensitive task, and as such will demand a multi-skilled team of diverse third-party facilitators. Required skills include interpersonal communication, group facilitation, intergroup problem solving, and system-level consulting.
Some common causes of intergroup conflict
Miscommunication:- Like most conflict, poor intergroup contact and miscommunication is a common cause of intergroup conflict. This often results from one group not accurately or clearly representing their intentions or goals.
Superiority belief:- If one group feels that they are superior to another group, it will often result in conflict.
Perceived Bias:- Somewhat opposite of superiority belief, a perceived bias is when one group or person feels that they are valued less than another for an unknown or unnecessary reason. This often cause a conflict when the situation this belief in someway, even if not true.
Rejection of norms:- Each group will have a set of norms that are followed in the group, from work style to feedback and confrontation when a group norms are violated by another group, the conflict will often result.
Individual differences:- Occasionally, individuals in differences groups will have differences or conflicts that may affect the group. This may be the result of past harm.
Organizational climate:- Occasionally, climate of the office will create conflict. Usually this is the case when something about the climate of the project is making those participating feel stress. It could be the space given to work, the time pressure, or the fear of retaliation if the project is not completed on time.
Solutions to Intergroup Conflict
There are numerous choices available to circumvent conflict, to keep it from becoming damaging, and to resolve conflict that is more serious. These include simple avoidance where possible, problem solving, changing certain variables in the workplace, and in-house alternative dispute resolution (ADR) programs. Any resolution method should depend on why the conflict occurred, the seriousness of the conflict, and the type. A face-to-face meeting, as in problem solving, can be very effective in conflicts of misunderstanding or language barriers. The groups can discuss issues and relevant information, with or without a facilitator, to reach resolution.
Where groups have differing goals, it may be prudent to establish some type of goal that can only be reached when the conflicting groups work together. A super ordinate goal not only helps alleviate conflict, it focuses more on performance, which is what the organization needs to survive. A downside to this option is the identification of a common enemy of the conflicting groups, who must come together to prevail. Eventually, the solidarity crumbles and groups begin to again turn against each other.
Another stopgap solution to conflict is simply avoiding it. Although this does not resolve the problem, it can help get a group through a period of time, in which those involved may become more objective, or a greater, more immediate goal would have been met. Along those lines, another solution is smoothing the groups by focusing on common interests and de-emphasizing the differences between them. This approach is especially effective on relatively simple conflicts and is viewed as a short-term remedy.
Yet another quick fix is the authoritative command, where groups, who cannot satisfactorily resolve their conflict, are commanded by management. This response does not usually deal with the underlying cause of the conflict, which is likely to surface again in some way. This would probably be a choice of last resort in this era of individual independence and self-determination.
Although it is not always possible to change a person's behavior, by focusing on the cause of the conflict and the attitudes of those involved, it will lead to a more permanent resolution. It is also possible to change the structural variables involving the conflicting groups, such as changing jobs or rearranging reporting responsibilities. This approach is much more effective when the groups themselves participate in structural change decisions. Without meaningful input, this resolution method resembles avoidance or forcing and is not likely to succeed, further frustrating all involved.
Another method of resolving the intergroup conflict is open communication. open communication encourages employees to speak up if there is something they disagree with, reminding employees that the team is all united to work for the good of the company, and ensuring that everyone understands the value that they and their coworkers add to the company, will all create open lines of communication that they can stop conflict quickly.
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